THE FLEDGELING

By I. AL. Bratescu-Voineshti

0ne springtime a quail nearly dead with
fatigue-she came from far-away Africa-- dropped
from her flight into a green cornfield on the edge of a
plantation. After a few days of rest she began to
collect twigs, dried leaves, straw, and bits of hay,
and made herself a nest on a mound of earth, high
up, so that the rain would not spoil it; then for seven
days in succession she laid an egg, in all seven eggs,
as small as sugar eggs, and she began to sit upon
them.

Have you seen how a hen sits on her eggs? Well, that is how the quail
did, but instead of sitting in a coop, she sat out of doors, among the
grain ; it rained, it pelted with rain, but she never moved, and not a
drop reached the eggs. After three weeks there hatched out some sweet
little birds, not naked like the young of a sparrow, but covered with
yellow fluff; like chickens, only smaller, like seven little balls of
silk, and they began to scramble through the corn, looking for
food. Some- times the quail caught an ant, sometimes a grasshopper,
which she broke into pieces for them, and with their little beaks they
went pie ! pie! pie! and ate it up immediately.

They were pretty and prudent and obedient ;
they walked about near their mother, and when she
called to them " pitpalac ! " they ran quickly back to
her. Once, in the month of June, when the peasants
came to reap the corn, the eldest of the chicks did
not run quickly at his mother's call, and, alas, a boy
caught him under his cap. He alone could tell the
overwhelming fear he felt when he found himself
clasped in the boy's hand ; his heart beat like the
watch in my pocket. Luckily for him an old peasant
begged him off.

"Let him go, Marin, it's a pity on him, he will die.
Don't you see he can hardly move, he is quite
dazed."

When he found himself free, he fled full of fear to
the quail to tell her what had befallen him. She drew
him to her and comforted him, and said to him

"Do you see what will happen if you do not listen
to me ? When you are big you can do what you like,
but while you arc little you must follow my words or
something worse may overtake you."

And thus they lived, contented and happy. The cutting of the corn and
the stacking of the sheaves shook a mass of seeds on to the stubble
which gave them food, and, although there was no water near, they did
not suffer from thirst because in the early morning they drank the
dew-drops on the blades of grass. By day, when it was very hot, they
stayed in the shade of the plantation ; in the afternoon, when the
heat grew less, they all went out on to the stubble, but an the cold
nights they would gather in a group under the protecting wings of the
quail as under a tent. Gradually the fluff upon them had changed into
down and feathers and with their mother's help they began to fly. The
flying lesson took place in the early morning towards sunrise, when
night was turning into day, and in the evening in the twilight, for
during the daytime there was danger from the hawks which hovered above
the stubble-field.

Their mother sat upon the edge and asked them:

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," they answered.

" One, two, three ! "

And when she said "three;' whrrr ! away they all flew from the side of
the plantation, as far as the sentry-box on the high road, and back
again. And them mother told them they were learning to fly in
preparation for a long journey they would have to take when the summer
was over.

"We shall have to fly high up above the earth for days and nights, and
we shall see below us great towns and rivers and the sea."

One afternoon towards the end of August, while the chicks were playing
happily near their mother in the stubble, a carriage was heard
approaching, and it stopped in the track by the edge of the
plantation. They all raised their heads with eyes like black beads and
listened. A voice could be heard calling : "Nero ! to heel ! "

The chicks did not understand, but their mother
knew it was a man out shooting, and she stood
petrified with fear. The plantation was their refuge,
but exactly from that direction came the sportsman.
After a moment's thought she ordered them to
crouch down close to the earth, and on no con-
sideration to move.

"I must rise, you must stay motionless, he who
flies is lost. Do you understand? "

The chicks blinked their eyes to show they
understood, and remained waiting in silence. They
could hear the rustling of a dog moving through the
stubble, and from time to time could be heard a
man's voice : " Where are you? To heel, Nero ! "

The rustling drew near-the dog saw them ; he
remained stationary, one paw in the air, his eyes
fixed upon them.

"Do not move," whispered the quail to them, and
she ran quickly farther away from them.

The dog followed slowly after her. The sportsman hurried up. His foot
was so near to them that they could see an ant crawling up the leg of
his boot. Oh, how their hearts beat ! A few seconds liter the quail
rose, and flew low along the ground a few inches in front of the dog's
muzzle. It pursued her, and the sportsman followed, shout- ing : "To
heel ! to heel ! " He could not shoot for fear of hurting the dog ;
the quail pretended to be wounded so well that the dog was determined
to catch her at all cost, but when she thought she was out of range of
the gun she quickly flew for shelter towards the plantation.

During this time, the eldest fledgeling, instead of
remaining motionless like his brothers, as their
mother bade them, had taken to his wings ; the
sportsman heard the sound of his flight, turned and
shot. He was some distance away. Only a single shat
reached his wings. He did not fall, he managed to fly
as far as the plantation, but there the movement of
the wings caused the bone which had only been
cracked at first to give way altogether, and the
fledgeling fell with a broken wing.

The sportsman, knowing the plantation was very
thick, and seeing it was a question of a young bird
only, decided it was not worth while to look for it
among the trees. The other little birds did not move
from the spot where the quail had left them.

They listened in silence. From time to time they heard the report of a
gun and the voice of the sportsman calling : " Bring it here ! " After
a time the carriage left the cart-track by the plantation and followed
the sportsman; gradually the shots and the shouting became fainter and
died away, and in the silence of the evening nothing could be heard
but the song of the crickets ; but when night bad fallen and the moon
had risen above Cornatzel, they clearly heard their mother's voice
calling to them from the end of the stubble : " Pitpalac ! pitpalac !
" They flew quickly towards her and found her. She counted them ; one
was missing.

" Where is the eldest one ? "

" We do not know-he flew off."

Then the heart-broken quail began to call loudly,
and yet more loudly, listening on every side. A faint
voice from the plantation answered:

"Piu ! piu ! " When she found him, when she saw
the broken wing, she knew his fate was sealed, but I
she hid her own grief in order not to discourage him.

From now on, sad days began for the poor
fledgeling. He could scarcely move with his wing
trailing behind him ; with tearful eyes he watched
his brothers learning to fly in the early morning and
in the evening ; at night when the others were asleep
under his mother's wings, he would ask her
anxiously:

"Mother, I shall get well, I shall be able to go with
you, shan't I ? And you will show me, too, the big
cities and rivers and the sea, won't you ?"

"Yes," answered the quail, forcing herself not to
cry.

In this way the summer passed. Peasants came
with ploughs to plough up the stubble, the quail and
her children removed to a neighbouring field of
maize; after a time men came to gather in the
size. They cut the straw and hoed up the ground, en
the quails retired to the rough grass by the edge of
the plantation.

The long, beautiful days gave place to short and
gloomy ones, the weather began to grow foggy and
the leaves of the plantation withered. In the evening,
belated swallows could be seen flying low along the
ground, sometimes other flocks of birds of passage
passed and, in the stillness of the frosty nights, the
cry of the cranes could be heard, all migrating in the
same direction, towards the south.

A bitter struggle took place in the heart of the
Doc quail. She would fain have torn herself in vo,
that one half might go with her strong children ho
began to suffer from the cold as the autumn
advanced, and the other half remain with the injured
chick which clung to her so desperately. One day,
without any warning, the north-east wind blew a
dangerous blast, and that decided her. Better that
one of the fledgelings should die than that all of hem
should-and without looking back lest her resolution
should weaken, she soared away with he strong little
birds, while the wounded one called piteously:

"Do not desert me! Do not desert me!"

He tried to rise after them, but could not, and
remained on the same spot following them with his
eyes until they were lost to sight on the southern
horizon.

Three days later, the whole region was clothed in
winter's white, cold garb. The violent snowstorm was
followed by a calm as clear as crystal, accompanied
by a severe frost.

On the edge of the plantation lay a young quail
with a broken wing and stiff with cold. After a period
of great suffering he had fallen into a pleasant state
of semi-consciousness. Through his mind flashed
fragments of things seen-the stubble-field, the leg of
a boot with an ant crawling upon it, his mother's
warm wings. He turned over from one side to the
other and lay dead with his little claws pressed
together as though in an act of devotion.